The Santa Fe-based artist Clare Dunne has converted Dave’s work into a lavish hand-made book, featuring wood-cuts inspired by the poem.
Staff and students at the University of Chichester will get an opportunity to see Clare and Dave’s work on 8th October, when the English Department stages a series of events to celebrate National Poetry Day.
Currently, the artwork remains on display in Santa Fe, where Clare says it has been “well received by the public and media”.
Dave’s poem, ‘Number’, is a dramatic monologue written from the point of view of a life prisoner suffering guilt for his crime of murder.
He wrote it several years ago after working as a Writer in Residence at HMP Nottingham, where his job was to spread literacy skills in a jail populated by a wide range of offenders.
The poem will be included in ‘The Privilege of Rain’, a book based on Dave’s experiences in the prison, to be published by Waterloo Press in the autumn of 2009.
The book will feature wood-cuttings by Clare, whom Dave met while researching the life of the Nottingham-born novelist and poet, DH Lawrence.
“Since working at the jail, I’ve become increasingly fascinated by Lawrence,” explained Dave. “Frustrated by what he called the ‘narrowness’ of England, he and his wife Frieda took off on a so-called ‘savage pilgrimage’ – their search for the ideal place to live.
“When I learned that they had come closest to finding their idea of heaven on a ranch near Taos in New Mexico, I knew I had to go there one day.
“The ranch was the only place that the Lawrences ever owned – and it certainly didn’t disappoint. It’s high in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains with a view down over the Rio Grande. On the drive up there, a cougar crossed our path – which we took as a lucky omen!
“Standing under the tree where Lawrence wrote, with no-one else around – just the wind in the ponderosas – it felt as if electricity was coming up out of the ground. I could hardly believe I was there beneath the tree immortalised by the painter Georgia O’Keeffe. I just felt so lucky to be alive!”
After visiting the ranch, Dave encountered work by Clare which featured bold wood-cuts of trees.
“One way or another, those trees just seemed perfectly suited to the poems,” said Dave. “The prison was in Sherwood, and I liked the irony that the supposed old haunt of Robin Hood was still home to all those outlaws.
“Also, the wood-cuts themselves wouldn’t exist without trees, so there were all these fruitful connections between Lawrence and Nottingham and trees, which led to a new little thicket of poems about the jail.
“Writing can be a lonely business, and collaboration is sometimes a lovely way of finding new inspiration, as well as learning more about this strange world of ours.”
For her part, Clare is continuing to work on fusions of art and poetry, and is on the look-out for a gallery in England that may be interested in staging an exhibition of her art-books.
She said, “I am merciless with writers’ poems, carving them up and illustrating them the way I like, so I was a little nervous about doing Dave’s work, since I know it is quite a presumption. But so far the writers have been very gracious about it!”
One picture shows a tree created by Clare Dunne. The other shows Dave standing by the tree immortalised by the artist Georgia O’Keeffe, who spent several weeks at the Lawrences’ ranch in 1929.
For further information on DH Lawrence’s connections with New Mexico, see http://travel.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/travel/22culture.html
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